


Calling Me Back

by Edge_of_Clairvoyance



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Action, Angst, Brotherly Affection, Brotherly Love, Caning, Comfort, Corporal Punishment, Discipline, Domestic Discipline, Family, Family Feels, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hunters & Hunting, Hurt, Hurt Sam Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, Non-Consensual Spanking, Pre-Series, Pre-Series Dean Winchester, Pre-Series Sam Winchester, Spanking, Teen Dean Winchester, Teen Sam Winchester, Teenchesters, Young Dean Winchester, Young Sam Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-27
Updated: 2017-11-27
Packaged: 2019-02-07 16:59:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12845520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Edge_of_Clairvoyance/pseuds/Edge_of_Clairvoyance
Summary: Dean didn't even know why it got to him so much that Sam was acting like this. Dad should have been irked by it, but he wasn't even taking notice. And suddenly Dean was more than just irritated. He was downrightmad, because this was a big hunt, an important hunt, a potentiallydangeroushunt, and Sam was pouting like a five-year-old, and not like the hunter he should have been, a hunter that was alert and ready and freakingcared.





	1. Into the Woods

**Author's Note:**

> Parental spanking of a minor, if it offends, please don't read.  
> Winchester elegant language, don't pretend you don't like it.
> 
> [CrazedPanda](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrazedPanda) did a wonderful, wonderful beta work, for which I'm tremendously grateful. Any mistake that you might find is mine.

"Boys! Ready to roll?"

"Yes, sir!" Dean pulled on his coat and checked the safety on his gun before shoving it into the waistband of his jeans. It was loaded with regular .45 bullets, but the extra clip in his pocket had silver ones, because they _still_ didn't have a damned clue what they were going to hunt. "Sammy, move it already!"

"Coming," Sam grumbled while shouldering a stuffed duffle that nearly threw him off balance. Dean took it from him and slung it over his own shoulder, earning a glare from Sam, to which he responded with his most cocky grin.

They left the motel room, loaded their gear onto the Impala and climbed in. From the front passenger seat Dean glanced over at Sammy; he was slumped in the back seat, staring out the window, looking like he wished to be anywhere but here.

Dean frowned. Sam had been hunting with Dad and him for a while now – not too often and not when Dad thought the hunt was going to be too dangerous – and he wasn't half bad at it either. He liked research, and most times looked exhilarated and flushed with excitement after the hunt was over, though Dean had the feeling Sam wasn't enjoying this as much as Dean was. But he rarely argued when Dad ruled he'd be joining a hunt, and even if he gave one of his bitchfaces – the number two and number seven were Dean's personal favorites – it was done behind Dad's back and only for a brief moment.

Dean couldn't really remember Sam slouching demonstratively like this, not since he was still having toddler-tantrums. Maybe the famous teenage attitude was finally starting to show – Sam _was_ thirteen already, after all – and if so, Dean hoped he'd stow it away, and fast, because John Winchester was not the kind of man to tolerate any kind of attitude, teenage or otherwise, from his sons.

Said John Winchester was now navigating out of the little town they were staying in for the past week and heading for the road that would lead them to where the monster was hiding. Whatever the monster was.

"It could still be a werewolf," Dean said.

"There was only one body with the heart missing," Dad said. "The others were just half eaten, or missing some limbs."

"Maybe it's a mutated werewolf. Or a ghoul-werewolf. A ghoulf," he smirked and glanced over at Sam. The kid was still in the same position, staring out the window, with no sign he was even listening. Okay, so he wasn't too keen to hunt tonight, but it was no excuse to withhold the proper attention from Dean's jokes. "Yo, Sammy, whataya say, a ghoulf?"

"A what?" Sam finally turned his eyes toward him. They looked miles away.

"A ghoulf. A ghoul-werewolf."

"No such thing."

"You don't know that there ain't."

Sam shrugged and looked out the window again. Dean frowned again, then turned to Dad. "Could it be a wendigo-werewolf?"

"More likely it's just some big, hungry monster that happened to eat just the heart on one case."

"Or it could be a few different monsters."

"Yeah," Dad sighed. "That's an option I'm not really looking forward to."

Dean _was_ actually looking forward to taking down more than one evil sonovabitch in one hunt; and anyway, wasn't that why Dad brought Sam along for backup, even though they were going in almost blind, which must have been considered dangerous by Dad's standards?

He threw another glance at his brother and tried one more time. "You don't have any guesses, Sam?"

"The research's not conclusive."

"No shit, Sherlock, I asked if you have a guess."

Sam just shrugged again, and Dean was starting to feel a bit irritated. If the kid wanted to throw attitude around it was fine, it was his ass after all; but Dean thought he deserved a little better from his brother. He certainly didn't deserve having all his fun spoiled because Sam didn't feel like backing up the only two living family members he had in the whole wide world as they went out to save the peaceful, unsuspecting civilians from yet another Creature of the Dark.

The drive took about an hour, but to Dean it seemed much longer because he was getting bored. He could tell Dad was too strained right now to go over the game-plan or the research _again_ , let along engage in small-talk. Dean was okay with that, but he was counting on Sam for entertainment, and the kid wasn't coming through.

It really wasn't fair. Dean wasn't the one to decide his brother would go on the hunt; he actually tried to make it as easy as possible for Sam, packed his stuff for him and made him a grilled cheese sandwich for dinner – which the kid hardly touched – and the least Sam could do was bestow the pleasure of his attention upon his awesome big brother.

And it's not like Dean was asking him to do something he completely hated, because Sam was fine with research, more than Dean was, in fact. He should have jumped at the opportunity to discuss lore and legends, but he didn't. Just sat there and looked pale and miserable, like he was about to face a firing squad.

Dean didn't even know why it got to him so much that Sam was acting like this. Dad should have been irked by it, but he wasn't even taking notice. And suddenly Dean was more than just irritated. He was downright _mad_ , because this was a big hunt, an important hunt, a potentially _dangerous_ hunt, and Sam was pouting like a five-year-old, and not like the hunter he should have been, a hunter that was alert and ready and fucking _cared_.

They were going down a narrow road in a wooded area, at the approximated center of the perimeter where the six bodies were found. The authorities marked them down as animal attacks, maybe bears; which, considering there were hardly any bears around anymore, after years of poaching drove what was left of them miles away from where the victims were killed, would have been odd. Dad didn't buy it, and neither did any of the other hunters he called to consult, but other than the eating of the bodies there were no consistent characteristics to the killings. Not even the way the bodies were eaten. They didn't know what the hell the thing was, they just knew they had to ice it, and ice it _now_.

Dad slowed down, peering out into the dark, and then found what he was looking for and turned off the paved road and onto a dirt trail that took them deeper into the woods. The headlights splattered over the trees and underbrush, and the engine's rumble echoed eerily around them. Then the road widened some, and Dad slowed, and then stopped and cut the engine off. The silence was even more eerie.

They got out, opened the trunk and started gearing up. Guns with both silver and regular bullets, a sawed-off with salt rounds, knives – silver and iron – and also some wooden stakes and flasks of holy water. They couldn't have been ready for everything, but they were for most. The half-moon gave a faint glow whenever it peeked from between the clouds, and Dean got the Maglite out of the trunk and turned it on.

Dad started walking away from the Impala and Sam was about to follow, but Dean laid a hand on his chest and shoved him back against the side of the car, with a little too much force. Sam glanced up at him, confused.

"You don't get to do that," Dean growled, looming over his little brother, his hand pinning Sam to the car. "You don't get to _ruin_ it. You don't get to go all spoiled princess on us when we need you to man up. You don't wanna be on that hunt? Tough luck, 'cause that's exactly where your ass is gonna be. So suck it up, get your head in the game and do your goddamned _job_ , or I swear to God I'll break your fucking _face_. You hear me, bitch?"

For a minute Sam just stared at him, hazel eyes wide open and mouth gaping a little. Under the hand that was still laid flat on Sam's chest, Dean could feel his heart beating, loud and fast. Now he didn't look confused; He looked scared. Scared of his big brother. Dean should have felt bad about it, but he was too damn mad to care.

"I hear you," Sam said at last, quietly.

"Good," Dean took his hand off Sam and stepped back. Without another word he turned toward where Dad was at the edge of the trail. A moment later, he heard Sam's light footfalls behind him.

Dad folded an EMF detector when the boys approached him. "Nothing," he said.

"But it figures, we didn't really think it was a ghost anyway," Dean said.

"I'm keeping everything open with this case. Okay, let's move out. Sam, man the Maglite. Dean, you bring up the rear."

"Yes, sir," they fell in line and Dad led them off the trail and into the woods, Sam pointing the light ahead from where he walked behind Dad, Dean behind him with the sawed-off cocked and ready.

It was a while before Dean realized that the crunching of leaves and twigs under their boots was the only sound. At night, in woods like this, there were usually rustles of little animals in the underbrush, creaking of insects, an occasional call of an owl or howl of a wolf. But it was completely quiet, and it was making him uneasy. It was as if the woods were deserted.

They were not deserted. The animals were there, but they were hiding.

Because they were afraid of something.

Dean tightened his hold on the gun.

They walked deeper into the silent forest, eyes scanning around, weapons at the ready. The beam of the Maglite bobbed and shivered as Sam tried to both light the way for Dad and survey the surrounding every now and again. Then Dad stopped and raised a fist to signal a halt.

They stood there, not moving, their breaths faint white vapor in the chilly night air. Dean's eyes darted around, trying to see in all directions at once. Nothing. Just the trunks of the trees around them and the deep shadows that made their flashlight seem so puny and unimportant. And then Dean spied something out of the corner of his eye.

"Three o'clock," he hissed while spinning on his heel and raising the gun. A second later the light turned, too, as Sam trained it on Dean's three o'clock. There was nothing there.

"What did you see?" Dad took a little step in that direction, gun ready in one hand, a knife in the other.

"Something moved."

Dad stepped forward again, gun raised a little higher. "Sam, don’t bounce the light around. It-"

And then the forest crushed around them with a roar.

The beam of light twirled madly as the Maglite was knocked out of Sam's hand, illuminating a huge dark shape as it went. Without thinking, Dean fired a salt round, at the same time that Dad's gun barked. There was a howl that made every hair on Dean's body stand on end. He saw red eyes gleaming in the dark and fired again.

"Sam, get back!" Dad shouted. His gun went off three times in rapid succession, and in the brief flash Dean saw the thing move, and Sam just standing there, staring up at it.

" _Sam!_ " Dean lunged forward and heard a loud swat and Sam's cry, and a second later a crush as something was plunged into the trees.

And then the monster was on Dean, _on top of him_ , smelling of rotten meat and blood and evil. He thrust the barrel of his sawed-off upward into the thing as hard as he could and pulled the trigger. It was salt rounds, but the proximity must have counted for something, because the creature was propelled back with another blood-curdling howl, and then Dad was emptying a clip into it. Dean dropped the sawed-off, drew the handgun and fired until the hammer clicked on empty.

He released the wasted clip and was reaching for the other one when Dad's voice finally broke through the ringing in his ears, "cease fire! Cease fire, damn it!"

Dean stood there, panting, the still-smoking gun in his hand. The Maglite was out, but now the scarce clouds allowed enough moonlight to reveal a dark, smelly unmoving heap on the ground. It might have been dead, it might not; Dean couldn't care less. His mind was screaming _SAM_ _SAM SAM_.


	2. Out of the Abyss

Dean rushed over to where he heard the crush before, found the spot with the freshly broken and wrecked bushes, and dove into them, hardly feeling the sharp tips of the branches scraping his hands and face, tearing at his clothes. He felt inside the mess of foliage until his fingers brushed against fabric, grabbed it and pulled.

A minute later he was on his knees, cradling Sam on his lap with his left arm, his right hand feeling frantically for the pulse in the kid's neck. He was shaking so badly he couldn't steady his fingers enough to find it, and that made him panic even more. Then his father's big hand swatted Dean's away and settled under Sam's jaw, over the carotid artery. They both froze for what seemed like eternity, until Dad moaned, "good pulse."

Only then could Dean breathe again.

Dad got up to fetch the Maglite, and Dean checked Sam's head. There was blood in his hair, and Dean traced the source to a gash in his scalp. When Dad returned with the light, Dean used it to determine it was a superficial cut, and patted Sam's cheek. "Sammy, can you hear me? Wake up, Sammy." He started rocking, still patting Sam's face. "C'mon, Sammy, come back, kiddo, c'mon."

He repeated it over and over again, like a chant, rocking Sam in his arms, feeling his chest tightening the longer Sam didn't respond. He could feel his voice grow desperate and the fingers of his left hand dig into Sam's shoulder. "Sammy, wake up, Sammy, c'mon, you can do it, come back to me, I know you can hear me. Sammy, come back, please."

When Sam's lashes rippled over his pale cheeks, Dean thought he was imagining it. He held still and waited. Sam's eyelids quivered slightly, and then rose ever so slowly to reveal the beautiful hazel irises. Dean broke into a grin so wide he thought his cheeks were going to split.

"Hey," he whispered. "Hey, Sammy."

Dad put the Maglite down and pulled out a pen light. He turned Sam's head and shone the beam into each eye. "Equal and reactive. Sam, can you hear me?"

Sam's lips parted and he let out a whiff of breath, as if his mouth couldn't handle forming words for the air to carry. He tried again. "Yeah."

"Where does it hurt?"

"Ev'whe."

Dad got to his feet, shook off his coat and spread it on the ground. "Lay him down. Check him for broken bones and whatnot. I'll move the car closer up the trail and get the med kit and the gasoline and salt for the corpse."

"Yes, sir," Dean eased Sam off his lap and onto the coat. Sam moaned, but didn't resist him. He was as limp as a ragdoll. "Sammy, tell me if it hurts, okay?"

Sam nodded, and Dean opened his coat and raised his hoodie and shirt to check his midsection first. The belly was soft – no internal bleeding – but Sam moaned again when Dean slid his hands around his ribs all the way to his back; bruised for sure, maybe even fractured. The arms were fine, and Sam could flex his fingers when Dean asked him to. But he gasped sharply when Dean moved down his body.

"Where, Sam?"

"Hip," he must have hit it on a tree trunk when he was thrown. Dean let it go for now and repositioned himself at Sam's feet and placed his hands flat on the soles of his boots.

"Press down with your feet, like on the car pedals. Can you do that?" There were intense few seconds until he felt the feet move against his hands and let out a breath. "Awesome." He felt all the way along Sam's legs over his jeans, but they seemed intact, and Sam wasn't reacting to the touch. He hesitated a bit when he reached Sam's waist again, then unbuttoned his jeans, and as gently as he could, pulled them down a little. Sam hissed. "I know it hurts, Sammy, I'm sorry. Just a bit more, okay?" Sam nodded and closed his eyes, fists gripping at Dad's coat.

Dean managed to pull Sam's pants down enough to see the huge bruise that was forming on the side of his slender hip. The bone could be fractured, he had no way of telling. He eased Sam's clothes back into place when Dad came back into view carrying a duffle and shovels.

"Report."

"Yes, sir. Ribs and hip bruised, maybe fractured. Hands and feet responsive, no spinal damage."

Dad let out a sigh. "Thank God." He crouched down next to them and rummaged through the med kit. "I know you're in pain, Sammy, but I can't give you something too strong right now, or the hospital's gonna pick up on it in the blood work. So just a tiny bit of morphine to make you more comfortable. Can you hold on for a couple of hours until we get there?"

Sam nodded, and Dad stroked his head and got the syringe ready. Dean exposed his arm and held it still, and after the morphine was administered laid it back down.

Dad got to his feet. "There's a little clearing about fifteen yards away, behind those trees. I'll clean up a spot there for the pyre, you tend to that cut on his head and then help me drag the corpse over to burn it."

"Yes, sir," a brief thought went through Dean's mind about the need to check and document the thing they killed before they burned it, for the sake of future hunters. But it vanished just as quickly as it came; right now, there was only one future hunter he cared about.

He used the supplies in the med kit to carefully clean and disinfect the gash on Sam's scalp and secured it with a butterfly closure – he had to cut some of Sam's hair to do it, and swore to himself to silently suffer any kind of crap the kid was going to give him over that.

When he was done he sat back on his heels and looked down at his brother. Sam seemed more at ease now, the strain gone from his face, letting the usual sweetness return to his features.

"The morphine's kicked in?" Dean asked.

Sam nodded. "Yeah. Better."

Dean smiled and reached to brush an errant strand of hair off his brow. "I'm so sorry I snapped at you earlier, Sammy. So sorry. I shouldn't have said any of that, I don't know why I did."

"I pissed you off," Sam said. Dean shook his head.

"That ought to have been Dad's problem, not mine. I had no right to get in your face about it."

"What ought to have been Dad's problem?" Dad was nearing them and crouching down.

"The way Sammy was acting about the hunt, all indifferent and slouchy and-"

He nearly bit his tongue when he suddenly cut himself off. Indifferent. Slouchy.

Apathetic and sluggish.

 _Fuck_.

"Sam," his voice was trembling, just a bit. "How high was your fever?"

Sam looked up at him, and for a moment he seemed like he did when Dean pinned him against the car.

"Dean, what are you talking about?" Dad asked.

"I thought he was giving me attitude, but he wasn't. He was sick. How _high_ , Sam?"

Sam opened his mouth, closed it, his hands fisted again into the coat he laid on. "Around a hundred and two. Point something."

Dean sank back, his stomach churning, his breath quickening when he rewatched the last few days' events in his mind's eye.

"You were sick, Sam? How long?" Dad asked. He was reaching to touch Sam's forehead, which, of course, would mean nothing now. But it was an automatic gesture. Dean could relate.

"Dunno. Maybe two, three days. I wanted to take a pill, but we only had Aspirin, and I didn't know if I could take it, so I didn't."

"Why didn't you say something?"

"Because of me," Dean said. From the corner of his eye he could see Dad looking up at him, but he didn't take his eyes off Sam. "Because I was so frantic about the damned hunt, and he knew it. I didn't talk about anything else. I wasn't hearing him when he talked to me about anything other than that. I didn't pay attention to the signs, I didn't even notice he was hardly eating. And if he had one last chance to stay behind in the car, I screwed it up for him. I told him he's a spoiled princess, and that he should suck it up and do his job. And I threatened him."

"Threatened," Dad said, slowly.

"Yes, sir. I told him I'd break his fucking face if he ruined the hunt for me," he could feel his cheeks heating as he repeated those awful, shameful words, but Dad needed to know it, and Sammy sure as hell wasn't going to rat him out. "And I meant it. I did." He finally raised his eyes to meet Dad's. "I made him go on the hunt like this, that's why he wasn't able to get out of the sonovabitch's way on time. This is why he almost got killed. It was my fault, Dad. Mine."

Sam stirred and tried to get up. "No, it's not your fault, Dean. It's not-"

Dean put a hand on Sam's forehead, held him down and then raked his fingers through his hair. "It is my fault," he said gently. "It's my job to watch out for you and I didn't. I could've known easily you were sick if I just fucking _looked_ , and I didn't. I didn't even bother to make sure we had basic medicines for you. I should've kept you off the hunt, but instead I pushed you in. I did this." He glanced back at Dad with those last words, and finally saw it; the look he was dreading from. The look he was hoping for.

The look Dad had just before he took off his belt.

Dad stood up. "Let's burn the damned thing."

They dragged the corpse over to the spot Dad cleaned in the small clearing. It did look a little like a bear – a twisted, nightmarish version of a bear – drenched it in gasoline and salted it for good measure, then stacked some wood over it and lit in on fire. Dean followed Dad when he returned to where Sam still laid, knelt for a minute to check on him, and then stood back up.

"The car's about three hundred yards that way. Take Sammy there and then return here to help me wrap this up."

"Yes, sir," Dean gingerly lifted Sam up in his arms. Sam would have bitched about being carried like a baby, if he wasn't so pained and tired. As it was, he just wrapped his arms around Dean's neck and rested his head on his shoulder.

Dean had started to head for the Impala when his father spoke again. "Cut a switch on your way back."

Dean's stomach knotted so hard he forgot to breathe for a moment. Sam's fingers grabbed at the back of his collar. He managed a "yes, sir," then resumed walking.

Neither him nor Sam said a word while Dean covered the distance to where the Impala was parked. He opened the back door, squatted down and carefully deposited Sam in the back seat. But instead of letting go, Sam's arms tightened around his neck, and Dean's own arms rose to hug him back.

"I don't want him to whip you," he could hear tears in Sam's whisper and tightened his embrace.

"It's okay, Sammy," he whispered back.

"It's not okay," Sam's voice rose a little. "It's not okay. It's not _fair_."

"It was my fault you got hurt and I'm sorry, really sorry. Dad's just…" he took a breath and closed his eyes. "I'll be fine. Don't worry, okay?"

He gave Sam another squeeze, disengaged and looked at his little brother's pale face. He tried to smile, but could feel that it came out a bit crooked. He reached up to tousle Sam's hair. "C'mon, he's not gonna kill me. He still needs someone to babysit you."

Sam made a weird face, not his usual bitchface, but close enough. At least he backed up a little to settle in the car seat. Dean got a blanket from the trunk, wrapped Sam in it, then went to the driver's seat to start the engine so he could turn the heater on. He looked Sam over, making sure the kid was comfortable before he left him there to head back to where his dad waited.

When he was well out of Sam's sight he stopped by a birch tree and pulled out his knife. He picked a proper sized branch – what he at least judged to be a proper size, it wasn't like there was a damned manual for it, and the one time his dad used a switch on him a few years back he had more urgent concerns than taking fucking _notes_ – cut it off, and spent another minute stripping it from the twigs and leaves. Then he returned to the little clearing where Dad was zipping up the duffel bag. The corpse was still burning, but the fire was dying down.

Dean handed the switch to his dad as steadily as he could manage and took off his coat.

"Lean over that rock," Dean followed Dad's gesture and saw a boulder that stood a little higher than his waist, its surface not flat, but reasonably leveled. He spread his coat over it and reached to unbuckle his belt, when Dad's voice came. "Leave the pants on."

Dean turned his head to look at him, a bit bewildered. Nearly getting his baby brother killed sure as hell warranted a bare-assed whipping, didn't it?

Dad understood what he was thinking, because he said, "I don't wanna risk the switch breaking the skin. You'll feel it just fine even with the jeans on, believe me."

Dean believed him.

He leaned forward, resting his arms on the coat, and focused his gaze on the dancing shadows the fire cast at the edge of the clearing. He heard Dad positioning himself behind him and a little to his left. There was a moment of silence, and then a swishing sound and a thud as the switch connected with his backside.

Dean flinched and his hands fisted into the coat's fabric. The switch landed again, hard, and his lips peeled back from his teeth as he struggled to keep quiet. The lashes were coming in a steady pace – a swish and a thud; swish, thud; swish, thud. Dean didn't even try to count. He concentrated on staying in position and attempting to breathe. He lowered his head so he could press his mouth against his forearm to stifle the cries of pain; he couldn't keep them in – the position he was in stretched his pants tight over his ass and the fucking switch was biting through them like a sonovabitch – but they were smothered to muffled sobs. At least Sam wasn't able to hear it from the car.

And he wasn't able to see his tears, either; they were pricking the inside of Dean's eyes, and when he blinked they spilled out onto his cheeks and streamed down his face. It wasn't just the pain. Well, the pain had a great part in it, but the guilt was a red-hot blade that burned his chest with agony worse than anything the switch could ever do. He knew Sammy already forgave him, if he was ever mad in the first place, and his dad would forgive him as soon as he finished roasting his ass. But Dean didn't know if he could forgive himself.

Maybe if Dad whipped him long enough, hard enough, he would be able to.

At some point he realized the beating had stopped. He still remained in position because Dad hadn't told him he was allowed to move, and even if he had, Dean didn't think he could. Over his ragged and hitched breaths and the blood pumping in his ears, he heard a small rustle and behind his closed eyelids he registered the dim light of the fire rising a little, as if something was thrown in and disturbed it. A moment later Dad's hand was on the back of his neck, gentle and warm, the other hand slid across his chest and under his arm and he was pulled up, turned around and leaned against his father's big body.

Dean tucked his head under Dad's chin and pressed his face into him, manliness be damned. Dad didn't talk, didn't move, just stood there with his strong arms around Dean. Dean didn't cry, exactly; but his breath was coming in shaky whimpers and his tears were still running and all he wanted was to burrow into Dad's jacket that smelled of smoke and blood and gunpowder.

Even after his tremble calmed down, Dad didn't let go of Dean, and Dean leaned against him until he felt he had a voice again.

"I'm sorry," he wasn't sure Dad could hear him, but he did.

"I know you are. You're forgiven. It's over now, son," he sighed and for a minute only rubbed his hand gently over Dean's back. "You're okay?"

Dean snuffled. "Yeah."

"Then let's clean this up and let your brother know I didn't kill you."

"I told him you needed me to babysit him."

The sound of Dad's laughter was deep and surprising, and Dean moved his head to look at him. "Oh, you're gonna babysit alright, because you're off any hunts until I say otherwise."

Dean expected this, but it didn't make it sting any less. He was almost willing to go another round with the switch and not be taken off hunts. Almost. "Well, Sammy has the baby part down, but you kinda messed up the sitting part for me."

Dad chuckled and cuffed him gently upside the head. "Smartass. Get a move on."

They made sure the creature was burned thoroughly before putting out what was left of the fire and burying everything under the mute floor of the forest. The clothes rubbing against Dean's backside as he worked were a new kind of torture, but it was part of his atonement, so he tightened his jaw and sucked it up. Around him sounds were returning - rustles of little animals in the underbrush, creaking of insects, an occasional call of an owl. The threat of the monster was gone, and the inhabitants of the woods were going about their everynight lives. It actually made Dean feel a little better.

With the cleaning all done, they returned to the Impala and stored away their gear in the trunk. Dad hadn't said that Dean's shotgun privilege was revoked, but Dean didn't consider himself worthy of it right now, and anyway, he wanted to be with Sammy.

Sam looked up at him when he opened the back door, and Dean could see him following his movements worriedly as he climbed in and attempted to settle down on the seat. It was harder than he expected; Dad had landed the switch on the backs of his thighs a few times as well as efficiently thrashing his ass, and finding a comfortable perch was nearly hopeless. He gave up trying, and just planted himself on the seat and grinned at Sam.

"See? Still alive," bitchface number five made a glorious comeback, and Dean nearly burst out laughing. Instead he just lifted his arm, signaling his brother he was allowed to snuggle up to him, which Sam did. Dean arranged him so he was again cradled on his lap with his head nestled in the crook of Dean's elbow. Sam seemed to be cozier like this, with the strain taken off his hip; it also meant added weight on Dean's sore ass. Dean didn't give a flying fuck.

Dad turned the car carefully around and started to drive them back to the paved road. Even though he undoubtedly wanted to get Sam quickly to a hospital, he was driving relatively slow; Dean guessed he was trying not to bounce Sam too much as the car sailed on the dirt trail. He hoped Dad was taking his backside a little into consideration as well, as every bump shot a wave of pain up from his sit-spots.

"I heard you, you know," Sam said quietly, and Dean looked down at him. He wondered briefly if his brother meant the whipping, but Sam went on. "When I was unconscious. It was dark and I was alone, and I felt like I was lost in some… I don't know, like an abyss or something. I wanted to get out, but I didn't know how. It was all just so… black and empty and scary, and… and then I heard your voice, you were calling for me to come back. And I followed it."

There was a sudden lump in Dean's throat and a prickling in his eyes, and he couldn't do anything but hug Sammy a little bit closer. Sam slid one hand out of the blanket and fisted it into Dean's shirt. Then he closed his eyes.

Dean turned his gaze to stare at the curtain of dark trees that rushed outside the window. The sight was a bit blurry because of the car's movement and also because of his tears. But it was okay; they were the good kind of tears, and anyhow, Dean didn't want to take his hands off Sammy to wipe them away, not for a second.

Not even for one second.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

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**Author's Note:**

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